A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Princess MacEaver
Summary: A Newsies twist on William Shakespeare's romantic comedy of errors, with magic, moonlight, and misplaced affections...
1. Act One, Scene One

A Midsummer Night's Dream

By Princess MacEaver

Disclaimer:  This fic is based upon the play by William Shakespeare, and I credit to him the plot and certain lines.  All characters from the movie belong to Disney, and everyone else belongs to themselves or me.

Act 1, scene i

Bittah stood on the roof, looking out over the borough of Brooklyn, her hands deftly stripping thorns from the rose stems spread on the ledge before her.  Her mind was not on her work, but it would be impossible to guess what she was thinking of: the city spread before her, her upcoming wedding, or maybe nothing at all.  So lost was she in her reverie that she did not notice her fiancé's presence until he grabbed her from behind, clamping his hand over her eyes.

         "Spot!" she yelled, trying to pry his hand off her eyes, but she was laughing.

         "I'm not Spot," he replied, deepening his voice and speaking with a strange accent, a wild cross between Transylvanian and Brooklynese.  "I'se Dracula, and I vant to suck yer bloo-ood!"  He fastened his mouth on her neck and she squealed and laughed with delight, but when his free hand began exploring her front she wriggled out of his grasp and spun to face him.  She shoved her short blond hair back on her forehead and tried to keep a grin from sneaking onto her face.

         "Can't ya wait just four days?" she asked him, catching his hands when he reached for her again.

         "Four days is forevah!" he moaned, pulling her to him as he sat on the ledge.  She let him pull her into his lap, winding her arms around his neck.

         "Don't worry, Spot," she said, kissing his forehead affectionately.  "Four days'll just fly by, we'se keepin' so busy gettin' ready an' all!"

         He scooped up the now thornless rose stems and she slid off his lap so he could stand up.  "I should go take dese to Mush an' da goils.  Den I'll ask 'im if 'e can keep from assignin' ya any more chores, so da bride an' groom might have a little quality time."  He grinned broadly at his bride.

         "I still don't see why ya let Mush take charge of da weddin' plans," Bittah mused.  "I like da boy, but I get da feelin' he's gonna bungle somethin' up."

         "Aw, it's da least I could do.  Good for his ego, don't ya think?  Hey look, speak a da devil."  He spoke just as Mush came stomping up the stairs to the roof, followed closely by his girl Athena, Bittah's friend who was also helping with the arrangements.

         "Hi Spot, Bittah," Mush said breathlessly.  "We'se gotta get dese flowers arranged now, an' also, you'se got some visitors."

         "Who's heah?" Spot asked.

         "From Manhattan," Athena spoke up.  "It's Princess, an' her brotha William, plus Jack an' Skittery."

         "Dey've come heah to fight it out in my territory, huh?" Spot observed, having heard the rumors that Jack and Skittery were butting heads over rights to Princess.  Princess was currently a Manhattan girl, but she'd spent several years in Brooklyn in her pre-newsie days, in the same tenement building as Spot, in fact.  Her brother, who made motion pictures in Chicago, had come to the city for Spot's wedding and somehow involved himself in the mess. 

         "Why don'tcha show 'em up 'ere?" he said, and Athena and Mush left to deliver the message.

         Bittah also knew the circumstances of Princess's visit and quietly sat down to watch with great interest how Spot would handle the situation.  She knew—and was pretty sure Spot did too—that Skittery and Princess had been making eyes at each other for at least a year before finally becoming an official couple.  Now, months into their relationship, Jack had dumped Sarah and tried to stake a claim on Princess as well.  "Stake a claim!" Princess had hissed to Bittah late one night in the bunk room.  "Like he can just point and snap and I'm supposed to come running?"  But Jack had persisted, and Bittah knew that Princess felt further conflicted because she had once liked Jack, but had put all those feelings aside when she and Skittery had discovered each other.  To make matters worse, Princess's best friend Autumn had been pining for Jack for such a long time, and when he dumped Sarah only to pursue Princess, Autumn's heart had been broken.  Bittah might not have shown her romantic side to most people, but she dreamed of a world where Princess and Skittery, and Autumn and Jack, might have been as happy together as she was with Spot.

         The unhappy company trooped up onto the roof, Jack striding at the front, followed by Princess's brother William, then Princess hanging back to be near a morose-looking Skittery.  They seated themselves in front of Spot, and Princess looked positively trapped to find herself between Jack and Skittery.

         Before sitting, William greeted Spot, whom he hadn't seen for years.  He was a short, broad man of twenty-three, who, along with his sister and younger brother, had been second family to Spot years ago.  The two hugged and slapped each other's backs, but the air to the meeting was one of business.

         "How goes it?" Spot asked.

         "I come with a complaint," Will said.  "When I left New York four years ago, you gave me your promise to watch out for my sister as if she were your own.  I come here to find her consorting with this—this lowlife—!" he alleged, pointing an accusing finger at Skittery.  Skittery gritted his teeth and a muscle in his cheek twitched, but he dropped his elbows onto his thighs and let his head hang down.  Will wasn't through.  "Who's bought her love with flowers and candy and trinkets and, and poetry…!"  He turned to accuse Skittery directly.  "Turned her obedience, which is due to me, and to Spot, and to her leader—," now pointing at Jack, "to stubbornness!"

         "Oh, _please_!" Princess protested, looking disgusted, but there was a note of sadness in her voice.

         Will kept on rolling, ignoring the interruption.  "So I come to you to ask that you side with me in my decision to give her this ultimatum: either she's Jack's girl, or I'm taking her back to Chicago with me."

         This threat obviously wasn't new to Princess or Skittery, but they both looked pained to hear it again.  Spot didn't know what to make of this.  It seemed to him unfair to take Princess from New York just for preferring one guy over another, even if the 'another' was the Manhattan leader.  But he _had_ promised William he'd be responsible for her, and part of the blame belonged with him.  He thought it best to ask for Princess's opinion, as she was beginning to look madder and madder to hear herself talked about instead of _to_.

         "Whattya say, Princess?  You'se gotta listen to your brother, you know.  Jack's not bad—"

         "Neither is Skittery," she countered stubbornly.  Skittery glanced up at her and managed a feeble smile.

         "Not bad in your eyes," Spot explained, "but da issue is how he looks in your brother's eyes."

         "I wish you could see him how I do!" Princess yelled at her brother.  "What do you care anyway—I haven't seen you for a year and you suddenly want to run everything?"  She started crying, and shook her head, dropping her head in her hands.  "I'm sorry, Spot, I don't mean to get all emotional again.  I'm just so _sick_ of this!"  Spot handed her a handkerchief, with which she wiped her face roughly.  Skittery surely would have given her his, but he seemed afraid to touch her or even look at her.  Jack had offered his first, but she had ignored his gesture and left him holding it suspended in the air.

         "Tell me, Spot," Princess said, when she had composed herself a little.  "Can he really take me from the city for this?  What's the worst he can do?"

         Spot sighed and looked to his silent fiancée.  He had a feeling that his response would affect another relationship besides Princess and Skittery's.  "Dat, yeah… or you could just leave da Manhattan lodgin' house, quit sellin' papes."

         "Move out of the lodging house!"  Princess jumped to her feet.  "Where would I live, on the streets?  Or worse yet, an orphanage?  They're gonna cart me off to live with the nuns!"  She began to cry again, dropping back to her chair and mashing the handkerchief to her face.  Jack ventured a hand onto her shoulder, at which she spat, "But rather that than consent to be Jack's girl."  There was such venom in her voice he withdrew his hand immediately, his eyebrows raising in his usual surprise to see Princess's formerly fond manner toward him turn so quickly to outright hatred.

         "I tell yas what," Spot said.  "Take a few days ta think about it, Princess.  Den in four days, when I marry Bittah, you'll tell me your choice: you from da lodgin' house, or Jack as your man."

         "Come on, Princess," Jack said.  "And you too, Skitts.  Why don'tcha just give up da fight?"

         All persons present who had ever been in love looked at Jack with disbelief and outrage on their faces.

         "Nevah," Skittery said, raising his head as he spoke for the first time.  "You have her brothah's love, let me 'ave hers.  Or is it him you want?"

         Jack leapt from his seat at this insult and the two would have surely come to blows had not Will pushed Skittery back.

         "I don't get you," Skittery said, stepping backwards as Will kept his hand on his chest.  "I may not be da Manhattan leadah, but I'se from da same background as Jack…I earn as much as 'e does anyday.  I'se nevah even been in jail, an' he has!  We'se even in all areas, except datPrincess—whose opinion might count fer _something_—prefers me!  You'se got no reason ta think I'se inferior ta Jack—Jack, who strings along Sarah Jacobs an' den drops her cold, den strikes up flirtations wit every girl of da lodgin' house.  He messed wit Autumn's heart, an' won it easy, an' now she positively _dotes_ on dis so-called man."  He spat in Jack's direction, and when the two lunged at each other again it was Spot who broke them apart.

         "I 'ave heard dis of you, Jack," he conceded.  "You an' me an William, we'll go tawlk togedda.  Princess, you try an' think of your brother an' how ta make him happy, or it's eitha you from da lodgin' house or a move to Chicago.  Come on, Bittah, let's head downstaihs."

         Princess began to cry again when all but Skittery had disappeared into the lodging house.  He was tense and upset from his near-confrontations with Jack, so upset he was literally hopping mad, unable to stand still as he probably envisioned the fight that could have been, pacing and taking half-jabs at the air.  But when he noticed Princess's tears, he stopped and shook his head and dropped to crouch beside her chair.

         "Cheer up, Princess," he said, taking her face in his hands.  "Now look, why are your cheeks so pale?"  He wiped away her tears with his thumb, speaking softly to calm her.  "How did da roses there fade so fast?"

         "For lack of rain," Princess replied miserably, "so I try to water them with the floods from my eyes."  The feeble joke made her wail harder, and she clung to Skittery tight.  He let her cry against him until she stopped choking on her tears.

         "Bettah now?"

         "A little," she mumbled, wiping at her eyes.

         Skittery stood and offered his hand as she stood.  He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.  "Don't worry.  You know what dey say, 'da course of true love nevah did run smooth.'"

         Princess's heart beat faster at these words—true love.  Is that what they had?  They weren't an expressive couple, didn't ever need to be, never exchanged mushy words or vows of love, just delighted in being near each other.  Until this mess with Jack, they'd never verbalized just how much they meant to each other.  In some ways, the ordeal was bringing them closer together—just as it tore them apart.  Princess circled her arms around Skittery's narrow waist and rested her head on his chest.  "I love you, Skit," she said impulsively.

"I love you too," he said, holding her close.

She exhaled and looked up into his eyes.  "Are we gonna let 'em do dis to us?"

         "A course not, pumpkin," he said, using a silly pet name to see a smile brighten her tearstained face.  He kissed her hairline.  "We'll do something.  We'll run away togetha."

         "Run away together!?" Princess sounded shocked, but her widened eyes were already sparkling at the prospect.

         "Wouldn't you want to?" he asked, grabbing her shoulders.  "Say you would, Princess."

         "Oh Skittery—" Princess said breathlessly.  "I—I think we should."

         They kissed fast and excitedly, their heartbeats accelerating and hands beginning to shake.

         "I have an aunt," Skittery said, breaking off the kiss.  "She lives just cross da way, in Jersey.  If we'se in Jersey, Spot can't touch us, not your brother or Jack or nobody.  We could stay wit my aunt, just long enough to get a start… Den we could go anyplace, anyplace at all!"  He tickled her and grabbed her up in a swinging hug.  When he set her feet on the ground again, they held each other close and kissed long and deep.

         Some time later, Autumn approached on the stairs, caught sight of the pair, and coughed discreetly to announce her presence.  Princess and Skittery quickly disengaged from each other, but clasped hands behind their backs.  Autumn was surprised to find her friends looking flushed and excited, because she knew the recent meeting had been an unhappy one.

         "Hello, lovely!" Princess said with a sparkling smile, greeting her best friend with a kiss on the cheek.

         Autumn did not return the kiss, but crossed to a chair and sat down heavily.  "Don't call me lovely," she said dolefully.  "Jack finds _you_ lovely."  She heaved a sigh.  "Your sea-green eyes, your golden hair," she said, gesturing at Princess though she gazed off at nothing.  She plopped her chin in her hand.  "Oh, lovely, lovely Princess.  Teach me ta look like _you_."  She looked up at Princess with sad blue eyes, her dark eyebrows drawing together in despair, a plaintive wrinkle on her fair brow.

         Princess and Skittery exchanged a knowing and sympathetic look and Princess sat on the arm of Autumn's chair.  "I'm sorry, Autumn," she said sincerely.  "You know I discourage him."

         "I wish my _en_couragement woiked half so good," Autumn said.

         Princess rubbed her friend's shoulder consolingly.  "I tell you what, Auty," she said, looking to Skittery.  "You won't have to worry about Jack and me anymore because Skitts and I—we're leaving."

         "Leaving!" Autumn repeated, her head snapping up.  Her face appeared a mix of delight and sadness because she thought of Princess both as her dear best friend and as 'that shameless whore who stole Jack's heart,' though she always amended the latter by adding, 'through no fault of her own.'

         "Promise not ta tell anyone," Skittery said.  "We'se leavin' tomorra night."

         "We'll meet in Central Park—you know that spot we always used to go to talk?" Princess said.  "We have to sneak out separately so no one suspects."

         "We'd best not see each otha 'til then," Skittery suggested, bending to give Princess a peck on the cheek.  "Don't forget," he cautioned.

         "Of course not," Princess said, and they watched him leave.

         Autumn caught the deliriously happy look on Princess's face and felt a stab of jealousy—or more accurately, she felt jealousy plunge an icy hand into her chest and toss her still-beating heart to the ground.  If it had been Princess and _Jack_ she had to see like that, she probably would have crumbled to dust on the spot.  Autumn swallowed.

         "I'll miss you," she said.

         "I'll write," Princess promised, standing and shaking out her skirts.  "And you write to me, and tell me how you landed Jack."  She gave Autumn a hug and also headed down from the roof.

         When she was alone, Autumn stood restlessly and paced around the rooftop.  She kicked a flower stem, a dark expression marring her face and her fingers tugging at her long dark braid.  She knew it wasn't fair—throughout the city she was thought as attractive as Princess, if not more attractive—Princess had a kind of innocuous fair prettiness, but she was no head-turner.  What then, did she have that Autumn didn't?  Jack.  Autumn fell into a chair with a _whump_.  As she thought bitterly (yet in anticipation) of Skittery and Princess's proposed escape, a plan began hatching in her brain.  She could tell Jack of the lovers' plan, just for the joy of watching him pursue them and return, luckless.  And for the information, she would have won his gratitude.  She knew it was not a thing one friend did to another, but, she rationalized to herself, neither was stealing boyfriends.  So for the moment, her attraction to Jack overpowered her obligation to Princess, and she fairly flew from the roof as she ran to find the boy she loved.


	2. Act One, Scene Two

Act 1, scene ii

            "Okay everybody, quiet down!" David Jacobs called above the crowd settling in the Duane Street Lodging House lobby.  His request went unheeded, or maybe it was unheard, as he marveled that seven newsies could make that much noise. No, five—because Raven and Jake were at least keeping quiet as they made out in a corner.  "Guys, quiet!" he tried again.

            "Here, let me," Lyf said, taking his clipboard and assuming a Co-Director attitude, one hand on her hip and a businesslike expression her face.  "Okay, people, _listen up_!" she bellowed, with an unexpected volume for her thin 5'3" frame.  The room immediately fell silent and all eyes were fixed on her, even Raven's and Jake's as they reluctantly untangled their limbs.  Lyf passed the clipboard back to Davey.  "Your turn."

            Davey, somewhere between bewildered and insulted, flipped a page of his clipboard and cleared his throat.  "Alright, so are we all here?"

            Lyf jabbed him.  "Call 'em all one by one," she whispered with authority.  

            "Fine," David said, shuffling a few more pages ineffectually.  "Where's the list… ah, okay.  These are the names of all the newsboys and newsgirls who signed up to perform a play for Bitter and Spot's wedding.  Answer when I call you."  Just as he opened his mouth to begin calling roll, Lyf again interrupted him with a poke.

            "_Foist_, tell 'em what da play's about," she said, "_den_ call 'em all out."

            David bristled and whispered to his fellow director, "Why don't you run this meeting, then?"

"Okay, I will," Lyf said, reaching for the clipboard, which Davey jerked away.

"_I'll_ run the meeting," he said.  "We a_greed_."

"I knew this was a bad idea," Stress grumbled from the cluster of actors, who sat bored, waiting for their directors to get their act together.  Each of the Manhattan lodging houses, the boys' and the girls', had insisted on providing the entertainment for the wedding.  Some bright light—Mush, probably, since he was arranging the whole shebang—had suggested a compromise, resulting in two directors who couldn't even get the first rehearsal started.

"Well, da play is about tha lovahs Pyramus and Thisby," Lyf said.  "Race—you're Pyramus," she said, handing him his script.

            "I thought we agreed Jake would be Pyramus," David muttered to Lyf.  "Race is too much of a ham!"

            "Jake said 'e couldn't learn that many lines," Lyf whispered back.  "The lion's perfect for 'im, it ain't nothin' but roaring.  Don't worry about it, we'll keep Race undah control."  Then she spoke up to the actors, "And playin' opposite Pyramus in da role of Thisby is Kid Blink."

            Bookie, who had already been standing and reaching for the script, stopped in amazement.  As Race's girl, she though it would only be natural to have cast her in the role of Thisby.  Blink was even more stunned as he stood to collect his script.

            "I don't get it!  Why do I gotta play a girl?  I'se tryin' ta grow a moustache!" he complained, running his thumb over his hairless upper lip.

            "We have our reasons," Davey replied firmly.  When Blink sat back down, Davey hissed to Lyf, "Why on Earth did you put him down for Thisby?"  
            "I thought _you_ put him down for Thisby!" Lyf whispered back.  "Oh, boy."  She rolled her eyes.

In the time it took for this short exchange, a bored Raven and Jake had lost all interest in the proceedings and turned their attention back to each other.  Bookie sat pouting, resenting Kid Blink for stealing her role and Race for being too wrapped up in his script to care.  Kid Blink, who had no interest in the play whatsoever and whose real and secret motivation was to be near Lyf, faked patient attention.  Only Stress, devoted as she was to her boyfriend David, could totally keep her mind on the meeting.  Lyf and David doled out the rest of the scripts and told all the actors to study their parts well.

"We'll meet in Central Park at midnight tonight," Davey told them.  "That way, we can rehearse in secret.  Don't be late, and know your part!"


	3. Act Two, Scene One

Act II, scene i

            Luna lay on her back in a hammock of a cobweb slung between two dandelion stalks, exhausted.  She was just slipping into a much-deserved sleep when a mischievous hand gave the hammock a spin and Luna was flung onto the ground.

            "Who _did_ dat!" she demanded, jumping to her feet, her wings quivering and her hands clenched at her sides.

            "Me!" cried a gleeful voice from behind her left shoulder.  Luna looked fast, but no one was there.  "No, over _here_!" the voice teased from several feet ahead of her.  

The dark-haired fairy ran forward and looked behind a tuft of grass, but saw no sign of the speaker.  "Dis ain't funny, smartass," Luna fumed, reaching for her slingshot.  "Come out so I can soak ya!"

"Now whatcha gettin' all woiked up for?  I was here all along."  Luna turned slowly and saw a brown-haired sprite reclining in her hammock, hands clasped behind her head.

            "You—you—!" Luna sputtered, pointing an accusing finger.  The offending fairy smiled, her grin sparkling silver in the twilight, and Luna squinted with a look of suspicious recognition.  "You—unless I'se wrong, an' I don't think I'se wrong… you'se Puck, known all ovah for da tricks she pulls for da sport of da fairy king!"

            The metal-mouthed fairy leapt from the hammock and swept a bow.  "Dat's me!" she said smugly.  "Also known as Braces Goodfellow, jestah for Oberon an' mischief-maker extraordinaire.  Pleased ta meetcha."

            Luna gave Braces's extended hand a deliberate look and didn't offer hers, instead drawing herself up regally.  "I'se Luna, an' I serve Queen Titania.  Thanks for nothin' for interruptin' my few minutes ta grab a nap b'fore I'm off on dewdrop duty again."

            Braces did not appear pleased to hear that the queen and her company were in the area.  "The king's heah tonight.  You watch out dat he an' Titania don't run into each otha, or dere's gonna be some serious fireworks," she warned.

            "Well, don't look now," Luna said, "but heah comes da fairy queen herself." 

            "Oh man, an' Oberon too," noted Braces, looking in another direction.  "Cheese it!"  The fairies ducked behind leaves and watched apprehensively as their leaders meet on the path, the queen Titania followed by her entourage of fairy attendants and the king walking alone, spinning a simple white walking stick in his hand.

            "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania," Oberon said, leaning jauntily on his stick.  He was a man of slender build, with glossy black hair and a white cap.  Thin wings of silver shivered on the shoulders of his blue shirt.

            His fairy queen was dressed more regally for her role in a gossamer gown with a crown of fairy dust atop her light blond hair.  She lifted her chin at her husband's cold greeting, noting that he used her formal name and not her nickname, Relic, reaffirming that their relationship was on the rocks.  Likewise, she avoided calling him Bumlets.  "Jealous Oberon," she said coolly, her light green eyes like chips of ice.  "Fairies, depart, I will have nothing to do with him."

            Oberon clucked his tongue and blocked her path.  "You will stay," he told her, interrupting her protest to ask, "am I not still your husband?"

            "Are you?" she countered frigidly.  "I've not seen you in our fairy kingdom for months, and I know you return only to revisit your old flame Bitter and bless her marriage bed."

            Oberon laughed, a short bark.  "Speak to me not of Bitter when I know of your love for the Brooklyn leader."

            Titania gave him a shove, flushing.  "Jealous, jealous!" she spat.  "My fairies and I have not met on hill or in dale, by sea or by brook, without your brawling to distract us from our dancing.  The winds are spreading fogs all over the land, crops are growing stunted or not at all, the seasons don't know when to change and rivers flood or run dry!  Don't laugh!" she cried, hitting him again.  "These misfortunes come from our doing!"

            "_Our_ doing?" Oberon said, raising a brow.  "So some fault lies in you after all.  Why would Titania cross her Oberon?"  His tone turned beseeching, but not begging.  "All I ask, Relic, is the little changeling boy to be my page."

            "Not even the flooding rivers and dying crops could take that boy from me!" Titania snapped.  "His mother, who attended me faithfully for years, carried that child in my company, but she was mortal and died bearing him.  I raise him up for her sake—it's the least I can do!"

            Oberon leaned against a stalk and examined his walking stick.  "How long will you be in this park?" he asked, ignoring her emotional explosion.

            "'Til after Bitter and Spot's wedding day," his wife replied.  "Then, if you will come with me, and dance in our rounds, join my company.  If not, you go your way and I'll go mine, and may we never meet again."

            "Give me the boy, and I'll join you."

            "Not for thy fairy kingdom!" Titania shouted with all the regal command of a fairy queen.  "Fairies, away!"  She grabbed the changeling boy from her servant Martini's arms, and her company departed.

            Oberon dropped to the ground, spinning his stick in his hands.  "I'll get you, Relic," he mumbled to himself.  "You'll pay for this."  He sat thinking silently for a few moments, then, without raising his head, called out, "Braces, get over here."

            Braces scampered out from her spot behind a leaf, reminding herself it was useless to hide from the fairy king.  While all the fairies could easily magic themselves all different sizes and even invisible, there was no deceiving Oberon.

            "Do you remember that time we went out to the bay and heard that mermaid singing?" the fairy king asked, a faraway look on his face.

            "I remembah," Braces said cautiously, wondering just what Oberon was driving at.

            "And at that same time, though you couldn't see it, I saw Cupid himself flying in the low-hanging clouds.  And he let loose an arrow, and I watched where it fell, and remembered the spot…"  He fell suddenly silent and sat without speaking for so long Braces wondered if he would go on at all.  She was just peering into his face to see if he was sleeping when his eyes flew open, making her fall back in surprise, and he said rapidly, "The bow struck a white flower, turning it deep purple.  Find me this flower, the one young girls call love-in-idleness.  A drop of its juice on a man or woman's eyelids as they lie sleeping will make them fall immediately in love with the first living creature they see when they wake.  Go to it!"

            So sharp was his command, Braces sprung to her feet and dashed off immediately.  A moment later, she spun on her heel and raced back to Oberon.

            "Which way?" she asked, panting.

            "There," he said, pointing, and she took off again, no more than a blur as she disappeared from view.

            Oberon scratched his side and settled back to get more comfortable.  "I'll take this herb, and anoint Titania's eyes as she sleeps," he murmured to himself, pulling his cap low over his eyes.  "Then whatever she sees when she wakes, rabbit or snake or squirrel, she will love it with mad devotion.  I know another herb to take the charm away—but before I'll administer _that_, I'll make her give up the changeling boy to me."  Just as his eyelids dropped shut, he was startled wide awake by a crashing sound in the bushes.  

            "Get _lost_, Autumn!" a young man's voice shouted.

            It was Jack, shoving his way through bushes and brambles with a kind of manic determination.  Autumn followed pathetically several yards behind, branches clawing at her skirts like an old beggar's grasping hands.  She jerked herself free time and time again and, panting and disheveled, struggled to catch up.  She reached Jack only when he paused to survey their progress and try to determine just how far from the path they had strayed.

            "Where's Princess and Skittery?" he demanded, looking not at Autumn but at the surrounding woods.  "You told me dey'd be heah an' now dey're not, but here I am stuck wit _you_."

            Autumn couldn't hide her hurt at these words, but Jack didn't even notice.  He charged on ahead, lost as he was, and Autumn, following right at his heels, caught a branch right in the face as it sprung back from Jack's shoulder.  She shoved the cruel branch away, clutched her smarting cheek, and scooped up her skirts to lope along after Jack.  "Wait!" she called breathlessly.  "Jack, slow down!"

            He stopped so abruptly she slammed into him and lost her balance, falling back into a bush in a tangle.  He faced her, his expression showing exasperation and irritation.  "Autumn, get it t'rough your head!  I don't want you around!"  When Autumn just gazed at him levelly and unblinkingly, he groaned with frustration.  "Do I flirt wit you?  Do I lead you on?  Or do I not tell you straight out dat I don't and can't love you?"

            "I can't help it!" Autumn moaned to his receding back, struggling to free herself from the bush.  "I love you anyway!"  With a good yank she got the bush to give up its hold on her skirts, but she was thrown forward with the force of her release and fell flat to the ground.  Belly to the dirt, skirts practically shredded, hair a tangle, hands stinging from her hard landing, she lifted her face and yelled, "Jack!  Please!"  Even cold-hearted Jack had to pause upon hearing the tears in her voice.  Encouraged, she scrambled to her feet and crashed through the brush to reach him, crying, "Leave me, lose me, neglect me, _beat _me, I—I'll love you anyway!"  Jack, his pity having grown to disgust, started to move on, but she clutched his jacket sleeve needily.  "Please Jack," she begged, "just let me folla you."

            Jack jerked his arm away roughly.  "Cut it out.  Lookin' at you like dat, it makes me sick!"

            Autumn stood in silent pain, a tear slipping from her blue eye and cutting a track of white down her grimy cheek.  Without thinking, Jack reached to wipe it from her cheek, and that touch of gentleness seemed to inspire in him a new method of ditching his unwanted company.  He slid his hand around to the back of her neck and pulled her closer to him, for a moment amazed to feel the thrilled shiver of Autumn's body under his touch, but quickly shaking that feeling off.

            "You'se a very trustin' goil, Auty," he whispered, letting his lips brush her ear.  "Me an' you… alone in dis forest, nobody ta help ya if you screamed… alone wit a boy in da night…"

            Autumn's eyes were shut, her face upturned as if receiving rays from an unseen sun.  She made a luxurious murmuring noise and pressed herself against him.  "You're my sun, Jack.  It's nevah night when I'm with you," she said, her arms wrapping tight around his neck.  "And—all da woild is heah, because _you_ are all my world!"

            Jack panicked and flung her away from him.  "Don't you come aftah me!" he yelled, taking off.

            With a determined set to her chin, Autumn stalked along the path Jack had forged.  "Fine, Jack, run," she muttered to herself, shoving branches out of her way.  "We can play dis game backwards if you want it like that.  The dove pursues da griffin, Daphne's aftah Apollo, an da goil may get her man!"

            King Oberon watched Autumn's departure with a sad respect.  "Don't worry," he said to the bushes closing up behind her.  "Before you leave this park, _he _will be the one begging your love."  A smile alighted on his lips, and Braces found him smiling still when she returned.

            "Psst.  Psst!" she whispered, hoping to wake him gently.  When he didn't move, she sat back on her haunches and took in the peaceful look on his face.  In sleep, he looked as untroubled as a child.  Her gaze lingered on the dark strands of hair that fell across his smooth brow and, with a flood of emotion, she suddenly remembered what he had told her of the herb's power.  She looked at the flowers in her hand, then at his face.  "Psst…" she tried one more time, and was suddenly seized with the urge to call him his nickname.  "Psst, Bumlets," she said, almost inaudibly, her fingers closing around the magic flower.  She might have gone through with it, but the whisper of Relic's pet name for him reached his ears and he sat bolt upright.

            "Oh, Braces," he said with mild surprise, rubbing his eyes.

            A flustered Braces hurriedly scooped up the flowers she had dropped in guilt and surprise and shoved them into her king's hands.  She knew very well who he had been looking for in that moment between sleep and waking, and was ashamed.

            "Well done," Oberon said, examining the flowers she had delivered.  She wondered if he would notice that they were crushed and damp from being clutched in sweaty hands.  But he made no comment as he selected a stem and twirled it in his fingers, examining it pensively.  "I know Titania's rose-canopied bower," he said, mostly to himself.  "There I may find her sleeping some hour tonight and let this flower work my trick."  Then he lifted his head and addressed his servant.

            "You take this one," he said, passing her back a flower.  "Somewhere in this park, a city boy is rejecting the love of a sweet and sorrowful girl.  Anoint his eyes, and be sure she's the next thing he sees."  He even took a caution to remind Braces, "You'll know him by his city clothes.  Now you to your task and me to mine, and meet me here at daybreak."

            Braces nodded earnestly and the fairies set off, each with the magical herb in hand.


	4. Act Two, Scene Two

Act II, scene ii

Socks stifled a yawn.  Though her thoughts were gradually turning into mush, she had enough sense to belatedly realize she never should have agreed to trade night watchman shifts with Martini.  Not after that elfin party she'd crashed the night before.  She smiled slightly to remember that one elf boy, what was his name, he'd had such beautiful eyes… She never knew just when she crossed that line between daydream and sleep, but she would curse herself for it time and time again when she remembered her negligence.  Because just as her hand slipped off the noisemaker and a light snore stirred the night air, Oberon crept around the corner and came upon his wife sleeping unprotected.

            He grinned at the sight of the sleeping guard, and tiptoed by her to kneel at Titania's side.  Swiftly, he squeezed a drop from the flower onto each of her eyelids.  "Sleep well, Relic baby," he whispered to her sleeping form, and crept away with a smile, dreaming of the vile creatures she might see when she awoke.

            Not far away, a squirrel dashed down a tree trunk and bounded across the grass.  It stopped abruptly and sat up on its haunches, its ears perking up at an unfamiliar sound.  Its muscles trembled, tensed to spring away the second it identified a predator.  It couldn't puzzle it out; something was making a loud rustling in the leaves, but the sound was coming from one spot, just behind a bush.  What sort of animal would make such a disturbance but not be traveling?  Every so often the squirrel heard noises unusual to its ears: a giggle, a whisper, a sigh.

            "Skittery—ow!"

            "What?"

            "Twig."  Princess groped under her back for the offending stick, and tossed it aside.  "Okay."  She grabbed his lapels and pulled him back down to her.

            The squirrel leapt out of the way of a projectile twig and raced up another tree.  It had at last recognized the scent in the air: humans.  It knew better than to hang around.  Humans were nothing but trouble.

            "Skittery?"

            "Mm-hmm?" he replied, his mouth being involved in things much more important than speaking.

            "I think we should stop," Princess suggested.  She gave him a few moments, then pulled him up by his hair.  "I _said,_ I think we should stop."

            "Okay, okay!" Skittery said, wincing in pain and trying to pry her fingers from his hair.

            "You know I'm not a tease," she said, releasing him.  "When I say stop, I mean stop."

            "I know," he said, rubbing his sore head.  "I been told dat often enough I oughta be bald by now."

            Princess smiled and kissed his nose.  "Good boy," she said, and then the look in his eyes was just so appealing, they somehow found themselves right back where they had started.  One thing might have kept leading to another had Princess not let out a heart-stopping scream and sat bolt upright.

            "What?"

            "I rolled over on something!  A snake!"

            Skittery laughed.  "No, Princess, I—"

            "No, it was a snake!  It was right under me and it wriggled off that way!  Oh ick ick ick ick ick," Princess said, brushing the feeling of the snake off her back with uncharacteristic squeals of disgust.  Her boyfriend smiled and reached for her, but she pushed his hands away.  Skittery was dismayed to recognize one of her arbitrary mood swings.  "What are we _doing_?" Princess asked, picking leaves off her disordered skirt and throwing them to the ground.  "Messing around down here in the dirt with snakes and spiders and God knows what else?  How romantic is that?"

            Skittery sighed and Princess pulled him up to sit beside her.  "Come on, don't get sulky on me," she said, ruffling his hair to dislodge a shower of dirt and moss.  "We'll be at your aunt's soon enough."  Well, she reflected, observing the look on his face, maybe she should have just said 'soon.'

            "I'm sorry I got us lost," Skittery said after a moment, leaning against her.

            "Lost, yeah," Princess said with a twist of a smile.  A newsie, lost in Central Park?  Only if you venture off the paths.  She kissed his brow and began to gather up her blouse and stockings.

            "Where ya goin'?"

            "I'll just be a little ways away," she said, indicating a patch of grass under a tree.  Skittery did not look happy with that arrangement, but Princess ignored his frown, bending to kiss him goodnight (allowing as she bent an unsurpassable view of her décolletage) before curling up to sleep a few yards away.

            "Love ya," Skittery said a few minutes later.  When there was no immediate response, he added, "And I'se not just sayin' that so you'll sleep with me."  There was no sound but the crickets, so, deciding Princess had fallen asleep, he bundled his shirt under his head and shut his eyes.

            In the dark, Princess grinned and held herself tight in the ghost of his embrace.

            Braces, Oberon's Puck, trudged through the forest with the flower sticking out of her back pocket, a cigarette between her lips.  She was bored with her so-far fruitless hunt for the city boy and the lovelorn girl, but what Oberon wanted, Oberon got.  She took a last drag on the cigarette and aimed to flick it over a log, but glimpsed a shirtsleeve and paused.  She quickly stomped out the cigarette where she stood and hurried over for a closer look.

            "Yup," she said, surveying the sleeping figure before her and noting the city clothes.  He matched Oberon's description—and there slept the girl, yards away.  Braces observed the deliberate distance between the two and nodded.  She'd found her man.  She took only a few moments to anoint his eyes and straightened up, relieved to have finished her task.  And if the two found true love, then she was some kind of a do-gooder, wasn't she?  She set her shoulders proudly and strolled away to report her accomplishment to Oberon.

            Behind her, Skittery stirred in his sleep.

            Jack ran into the clearing, followed closely as always by a disheveled Autumn.  She paused for breath, but risked losing sight of Jack altogether.  "Wait up!" she yelled to his back when she could catch enough air.  She heard no reply but the crashing of branches as Jack continued through the trees.  Gritting her teeth, Autumn shoved up her sleeves and started after him, but she abruptly stopped and plopped down onto a log.  She forced herself to breathe deeply, her combination of exhaustion and near-hysteria forcing her lungs into warpspeed.  Tears began to drop down her face and she sniffled loudly.  Her emotions were all a jumble: hatred toward Jack, love for Jack, jealousy of Princess, disgust with herself.  Oh, what kind of person sat around crying out of self-pity in the middle of the night in the park?  She stood and wiped her eyes with her dirty, ragged shirtsleeves, and suddenly sighted Skittery's motionless body across the clearing.

            "Oh my God!"  A number of horrible scenarios flashed across her mind as she raced to the body.  "Skittery, Skittery!  Are you okay?" she said, shaking his shoulders.  She felt an enormous rush of relief when his eyes opened.   She then felt an enormous rush of surprise (and quite a bit of tongue) when he sat up and kissed her full on the mouth.

            "Skittery!" she shrieked, shoving him flat on his back again.  "It's me, Autumn!"

            "Could I mistake you for anotha?" he asked, sitting back up with a dazzled expression on his face.  She knew that expression—it was the kind of look he exchanged with Princess when they thought no one was looking.  She scrambled to her feet, not knowing what to think, and he caught her wrist, pulling her back toward him.

            "Beautiful Autumn," he said, kissing her hand with something more than politeness, even turning it over to press his lips to the inside of her wrist.  Autumn felt a shiver of thrill and disgust.

            "You'se tawlkin' crazy, Skittery!" she said, wrenching her hand away.  "What about Princess?"

            "What about 'er?"  He caught a hard blow on the side of his head, but wasn't shaken.  "She's nothin' to me, I don't know how she evah was.  But it's like I'se seein' with new eyes—Auty, I'm crazy for ya."

            Autumn stared at him, her best friend's boyfriend clutching for her hand and gazing up at her with sincerity and devotion.  Suddenly her vision blurred and she burst into tears, shoving him away so hard he rolled twice before slamming into a decaying log.  "You think you're so funny, don't you!" she screamed, bending to scrabble for pine cones and sticks, whatever she could get her hands on.  Skittery cowered and put up his hands to ward off the missiles she flung at him with animal ferocity.  "I thought you bettah than dat," Autumn yelled through her sobs.  "It's bad enough Jack don't love me, and you gotta make _fun_ a me for it?!"  When she ran out of ammunition, she hid her face in her hands and ran back into the woods.

            Skittery cautiously peeked through his fingers, and, determining the attack was over, hurried to follow his new devotion, nearly tripping over Princess's sleeping form as he ran.  "Damn!" he whispered, hopping precariously on one foot as he tried not to land on her.  When he finally regained his balance, he gave her one long look and left her sleeping in the clearing.

The wind rustled through the leaves above, and the forest was dark and still.

Princess woke with a start, half a scream on her lips.  "Oh my God!" she cried, putting a hand to her heart and sitting up fast.  "Oh my God, Skit, I dreamed there was this snake on me, it was trying to eat my heart out and you—you just watched!  It was the freakiest thing, I swear—"

            She stared at the spot where Skittery used to be.  "Skittery?" she said uncertainly, standing and looking around the clearing.  She ran to his shirt, abandoned in a heap on the ground; she held it to her chest and immediately, tears burned unshed in her eyes.  "Skittery?"  Her hands began to shake and she fought to keep herself rational.  It was so easy to get scared, with the menacing shapes forming in the darkness of the trees and every snap of a twig as loud as a gunshot in the silence.  Princess closed her eyes tight but a single hot tear seeped out from her eyelid.  She brought his shirt to her face to dry her eyes, and with the breath of its scent and texture against her face a thousand emotions crashed over her.  She pulled the shirt over her bare shoulders and took off to find him, tears smearing her sight.


End file.
